


A Helping Hand

by FilmFreak94



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, NSFW, Oral Sex, Sex, Stephen Galaxy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 12:54:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9727706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FilmFreak94/pseuds/FilmFreak94
Summary: When a long day exhausts one of her roommates, Amethyst suggests a little exercise to lift Pearl's, and her own, spirits.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, holy fuck, this is my first smut. Brought about by a friend giving me a prompt for Valentine's Day featuring these two lovely ladies (that makes me sound weird, Amethyst and Pearl).
> 
> So yeah, like I said this is the first time I've ever written a story like this and the response my friend gave me was mostly positive so I guess I did something right, but if there's anything blatantly wrong about it please let me know so that if I ever do something like this again (which is a possibility, it was actually pretty fun to make (that also makes me sound weird)) I know what I'm talking about.
> 
> Please, enjoy. Sorry if you don't. Have a pleasant Valentine's whether you're single or taken and just have a good day in general. We now take you to your feature smut presentation.

The car slowly pulled up the driveway of the beach house and came to a stop just behind the red Porsche. The driver side door opened and a nerd of a man, on the threshold of his twenties, stepped out, squinting in the bright sun as he double checked the address; 7520 Sparky Wilkins Dr.

Satisfied, he crumpled the note back in his pocket and went to the passenger side door, opening it to retrieve a fresh box of hot, cheese pizza, so large he had to carry it with both hands. Whistling a merry tune to himself he made his way towards the door, admiring the lush vegetation of the front lawn and the little pond where imported koi fish swam aimlessly.

At the threshold he carefully reached a finger over to the doorbell while still holding the pizza, hearing what sounded like the ringing of a church bell in the house. This place truly was ritzy, that was no mistake.

A few moments later he could see the outline of someone approaching the door, blurred by the oval shaped glass that distorted its figure. The door opened to reveal a woman at least twice his age, wearing a black silk bathrobe that was tied around her waist, exposing a good portion of her cleavage. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Pizza delivery for Ms.… Peaches?” The delivery man said, his voice squeaky and carrying a noticeable lisp.

“Oh my,” Ms. Peaches, if that was her real name, replied in a sultry manner, running a well-trimmed, purple-painted fingernail over her bosom, “you came so quickly.” The delivery man smiled sincerely at this, poor fool. “And I wasn’t expecting it to be so,” she pursed her lips as she finished her sentence with an exaggeratedly seductive, “big.”

“You ordered a large, didn’t you miss?” She couldn’t help but snort at this. Peaches didn’t seem as amused.

“Oh, yes, I did, you lucky boy. I just wonder if it will really match up to my… expectations…”

“Well, I can assure you miss-”

“Please, call me Glenda.”

“Oh, okay, Miss-er, Glenda,” he opened the box, “at Father Jim’s pizza we can assure you, as part of our code of honor, that ours is the largest pizza in this or any county of this great country.”

“I’m so happy to hear that,” she leaned her face over the pizza, granting her oblivious guest a larger window into her robe. “I’ve been without something big and hot for so long…”

“We’re just right down the street if you ever want another pizza, mi-Glenda.”

“And the cheese,” she took a slice and ran her finger along a stream of cheese stuck to the box, “I hope it’s extra,” she licked her lips, slightly smearing her dark red lipstick, “creamy…”

“We don’t use cream cheese, Glenda.”

“OH MY GOD, DUDE!” Amethyst screamed at the TV. “Do you need breadcrumbs to her vag, she’s trying to fuck you!!!” She always hated when pornos decided to extend (she giggled to herself) their runtime by adding in flimsy excuse plots like this. What was even the point, were there people out there who rented these shitty videos from the seediest stores who were demanding their spank material come with a plot at the beginning? Were she in charge of any of them she’d cut all the crap and go straight for the throat (she giggled again).

“Say,” Glenda said, “I’m not sure I can finish this pizza all by myself. Would you like to help me?”

“SAY YES.” Amethyst said, getting tired of the runaround.

“Oh, Glenda, it’s awfully swell of you to offer, but I’m afraid I can’t. I still have a few orders to get to and-” The older woman grabbed him by the collar and pulled him closer to her, causing him to drop the pizza.

“Forget your other orders.” She looked at him intensely, and he looked at the pizza with dejection.

“Glenda, your pizza!”

“You fucking dope.” Amethyst shook her head.

“Forget the pizza, I have something better.” She practically attacked his lips as she smothered them with hers, the porn beginning in earnest.

“Ugh, finally.” Amethyst said, fingers already on standby underneath her sweatpants and cupped into her pussy. She began slowly, admiring the way whoever the actress was for Ms. Peaches kissed the delivery man. This was a blatant teen nerd fantasy through and through, the fake acne covering what was probably an attractive dude and the obvious lisp he put on as his character (points for getting into it at least) was proof enough of that. Yet, shameful as it was, she couldn’t help but be suckered into it as well as any teen schmuck with a fake ID wandering into an adult video store and grabbing the first VHS he could get before he got caught.

She went about her work, lazily watching the two make out and get steadily more passionate as the naïve pizza man got steadily more into it, but she couldn’t give two shits about him. Her focus was on Glenda, the way she moved her body, the way she kissed his lips and sucked on his tongue. The way she practically carried him up to the bedroom and threw him on the bed, tearing off his shirt and pants, leaving his underwear as she took a few steps back for him to get a full view of her stripping away her robe, revealing two, large, voluptuous breasts with perfectly erect nipples. They were fake, of course, as was the rather large boner pizza boy was sporting; the product of Viagra or something of the like. It was all perfectly calculated by some stuffy exec in the background checking off a list of all the things guaranteed to pop a stiff one in the intended audience, and she hated buying into it so easily.

But just look at that gorgeous woman, she thought to herself. Wasting her talents removing pizza man’s boxers and going to work downtown. The camera certainly loved her too, the way it lingered on her body as it slowly made its way from her perfectly pedicured feet to her face and her mouth. As Amethyst moved her fingers closer to her clit, rubbing it a bit more feverishly with each feverish blow the woman made, she closed her eyes and imagined Peaches there in the room with her, doing all the hard work for her as she leaned back on the couch and relaxed.

The beep of a car horn outside drew her back to reality. Eyes wider than the pizza man’s as he was brought to his first (of presumably many knowing videos like this) orgasm. She recognized that car horn, just as she recognized the clicking heels approaching the front door.

“Shit!” She retracted her hand from her pants and clamored for the remote on the coffee table she had been resting her feet on. She hit the eject button with lightning speed and dove over the table to the VHS player, catching the tape just as it fell out. She ran for her bedroom, realizing not a moment too soon that her pants had fallen off in her mad dive. She retrieved them just as a key in the lock on the other side of the front door began to turn. As quick as her short legs could carry her she sped down the hall and on the third door to the left, closing it and throwing the tape under her bed along with the others.

She waited for a moment, listening to the front door at the far end of the house opening and closing, footsteps making their way inside, a bag or purse being placed on the kitchen counter. Her ear was glued to her door as she waited for the all clear.

“Amethyst,” a prissy and tired voice called out from the front of the house, “we’re home!” She let out a huge sigh of relief she’d been holding since she first heard the car beep, smirking at how sly she was. She was about to step out into the hall when she remembered one other bit of damning evidence. She brought her left hand closer to her nose and took a whiff of her fingers. She smelled good, but Pearl probably wouldn’t approve.

As casual as she had ever been, she went into the hall and stopped at the nearest door on her left, the bathroom. She locked herself in, turned the fan on, waited a good minute to make it seem like she was actually doing something, then flushed the toilet and washed her hands thoroughly. It was close calls and aftermaths like this that brought her hands to the sink on most occasions, not caring much about personal hygiene any other time, but she always made a show of running sink water after every flush to convince her neat freak roommate that she was a good little girl who always washed behind her ears and everything. She supposed that with the effort of actually running the water for at least ten seconds she could spend that amount of time actually doing what Pearl thought she was doing from time to time.

“Nah.” She said aloud, grabbing the nearest hand towel from the rack and drying her appendages. She pursed her lips at her reflection, much as Glenda Peaches had done in the movie (damn your timing, Pearl) and went to go greet both her young and her frazzled roommates.

 

It had been a long day for the frazzled young woman. Bags under her eyes, three cups of coffee slowly starting to fade out of her system, her cream-colored hair frizzled and unkempt, and a crying baby in the backseat of the car.

“Oh, Steven.” She groaned, her voice too much of a whisper for even her to hear over his cries.

Reaching over to the passenger seat, she picked up his favorite rattle and, while keeping her eyes on the road, held it behind her, shaking it in front of the crying babe. It did little to calm him. Nothing had calmed him almost the entire morning.

The day began as it always had; Pearl had woken up to some hastily made breakfast sandwiches by her responsible roommate, Garnet, before she had rushed out to her job in the mines. Greg was next to follow suit, trying to keep an already crying Steven happy in one arm while eating a sandwich in the other. Pearl was left on baby duty not long after, as Greg ran out the door to his car wash, and since she still didn’t trust her less responsible roommate, Amethyst (who was still sound asleep at this point), alone with Steven this early in his infancy, she resolved to take him with her to her work; a receptionist position at town hall for the Mayor.

She hated the job. _Loathed_ was a more appropriate term. The pay wasn’t bad nor the work too hard. In fact, that was part of the problem; it was all so menial. Sort this, arrange that, screen phone calls, it was, to quote Amethyst, “the worst.”

On top of that, her boss, Mayor Dewey, had an unpleasant penchant of hitting on her. He wasn’t aggressive in his flirtatious attempts, nor did he ever corner her or make her feel unsafe if she ever rebuffed him (which she did, frequently), but he was so Goddamn persistent. She’d find a flower on her desk every day or a note or something of the like which would be something along the lines of, “Have a good day,” or something else to that measure. When she first started working under him (and the gifts were less frequent) she though it was nice, even sweet of him to show his appreciation to her like this. Now, after about three years, it had long ago worn its charm away. If nothing else, this persistence is probably what helped him get the Mayoral duties he had today (it certainly wasn’t his track record being, at best, a very mediocre politician).

She had tried to drop subtle hints she wasn’t interested over the years. Gently declining offers to get together for dinner or lunch, casually turning the conversation towards his son or her own personal life whenever he would divert it to something like her appearance, typical telltale signs of disinterest, but most men, many worse than him, could never take the hint, she long ago discovered.

Also, and she hated to admit something so superficial, even if she was interested in men, Bill Dewey would not be her first choice. Or second, or third, or tenth, or fiftieth…

That had certainly been a contributing factor to her extreme fatigue this day, but Steven had been another part of it, much as she hated to admit that as well.

She loved Steven, after an admittedly long time it took to warm up to him fully, but the boy could be three handfuls on the worst of days. Today, he had been five.

 

It began in the morning, where after being fed and looking as if he’d exhausted all the tears from his eyes, Steven decided to break down in another fit as they drove to town hall. Pearl tried to coax him as she drove but to no avail, concluding he must be in one of his touchy moods (for lack of a better term). Every baby required physical contact to keep it happy and healthy from time to time, but Steven seemed different in that regard somehow. As though he would die if he couldn’t be two seconds without hers or Greg’s or anyone else’s touch. She was happy to oblige, loving the feel of Steven’s warm and tiny breath on her chest whenever she held him, treasuring the tiny eyes that would drift off to sleep and feel nary a care in the world when they were together. She concluded that this was all he needed to be sated from his hissy fit.

This was mistake number one.

Even as she held him, Steven continued to wail out into the early morning air, turning the heads of several employees and citizens making their way into the building. She smiled sheepishly at them, wishing a few a good morning as she rushed to the nearest bathroom. If contact wasn’t the answer, perhaps there were more pressing matters in his diaper bothering him.

Steven’s cries echoed throughout town hall, until she was certain everyone in the building could hear him. It couldn’t be helped, not until his accident could be taken care of. She practically threw her back onto the bathroom door and made for the farthest stall with the changing station, setting herself to work removing the offending diaper from the poor child.

It was, aptly enough, dirty work, and she was thankful the past few months had built up her gag reflexes (the first time she had changed his diaper she was even more grateful a toilet had been nearby). Breathing through her mouth and sanitizing the air with a spray she kept handy in her purse, Pearl put a fresh diaper on the still-crying babe and rocked him gently as she sat on the toilet seat, checking her watch for the time. She was going to be a few minutes late at this rate, though she supposed if there was one thing useful about the Mayor’s schoolyard crush it was that he probably wouldn’t care. She could get away with anything short of murder around him and he wouldn’t care (not that she would ever exploit his trust or her position in such a way).

Fixing her hair as best she could in the mirror before leaving the bathroom, she quickly took the elevator to the second floor where the daycare center for the building was. Steven was well known there, the perfect playmate for the other babies his age. He never shoved, he never hit, he was a friend to everyone and a living angel if there ever was one. Pearl exited the elevator and rounded the corner where saw the woman in charge of the daycare, Martha, through the glass window on the other side, two babies in each of her arms and a warm if exhausted smile when she saw the two of them.

“Good morning, Pearl.” She said cheerily.

“Hectic is the word I’d use.” Pearl returned her smile, then gave one to the toddler three years Steven’s senior, clinging to his mother’s dress and avoiding her gaze as his face turned beet red. Martha’s attention, however, had turned to Steven.

“Hello, Stevie-wevie, how are you today?” She asked the indifferent baby in a voice that could send a person with diabetes into an insulin-induced coma. Steven was normally more receptive of Martha’s sunny personality, but had literally pooped himself out after his earlier exploits, drifting further and further to dreamland.

“Do you mind if I put him in one of the cribs?” Pearl asked her.

“Of course, pick any one you like.” She bounced one of the other babies in her arms, cooing at it much as she had Steven. The room’s disposition matched the person in charge of it, decorated with a jungle setting and comical, cartoon giraffes, elephants and monkeys drawn sloppily on the walls. The cribs were crafted to appear as though they were made from bamboo, with the cushions and blankets inside resembling tree leaves. Carefully, she lowered Steven into a crib that neighbored another baby wearing a cute sundress, with a miniature sunhat by her sleeping side. Steven wriggled his arms a little and smacked his lips after a long yawn, shutting his eyes and keeping them closed for as long as Pearl stared love-struck at him. She wanted so much to plant a kiss on his chubby little cheek, but decided against it, unwilling to press her luck.

“Here you are,” Martha said once she’d met her at the front desk, giving her a pager should she need to contact her (standard protocol for all the employees leaving children behind). “Have a good day.”

“You too.” Pearl replied in earnest, not giving any more thought to Steven as she went back to the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. He would be fine here, happy and well stimulated until they were ready to leave. She believed that this day would be no different than any other she had brought him to work.

This was mistake number two.

 

She had apologized profusely to the Mayor for her tardiness once she arrived at his office, but as predicted he dismissed her apology with an anxious laugh and an exaggerated tone of friendliness, telling her to get to work and saying no more on the matter. A bouquet of flowers waited for her at her desk, something she hadn’t noticed at first in her frantic dash to explain her absence, and it sent a particular knot in her stomach she had been trying to escape from for months. A cavalcade of bitter, furious and altogether despondent emotions welled inside her when she saw the type of flowers her blissfully unaware boss had left for her.

It was a bouquet of roses.

The already menial work was made all the worse the next few hours, all because of those intrusive flowers that now sat in the wastebasket by her desk (she was too engendered by her own emotions to care if Dewey would notice). She could barely pay attention to whatever calls came for the Mayor, or any paperwork that needed filling out or anything else that would normally have her full, if disinterested, attention. She was thankful when her lunch break finally arrived and she was able to dispose of the bouquet properly, stepping outside for the first cigarette she had had in a while.

It was a filthy habit, one she had been trying to quit since before Steven was born and was mostly getting the better of. But there were days of weaknesses where she would relapse and her trembling fingers would crave the release of that filthy nicotine to pollute her lungs and steady her nerves. They all concerned the same thing as well; Rose.

Rose had been her third roommate, and Pearl’s not-so-secret crush from the moment she first laid eyes on her. The four of them met under various circumstances that managed to bring them all under the same roof, but Rose and Pearl had known each other the longest. Ms. Diamond’s Advanced Poetry class in community college was where she first saw Rose. Anyone in the same room as her would be instantly drawn to her physique. She was tall, quite curvy and unashamed of it, and with a long, curly mass of pink hair on her head. Garnet, whom she had also met in college and was studying psychology to be a therapist, always went on about how love at first sight did not exist and she had no concrete evidence to prove the stoic girl wrong. But seeing Rose the first time in the class, just looking at her for no more than two seconds, if love at first sight didn’t exist Pearl had no idea what she felt when she saw Rose Quartz that fateful and wonderful day.

Her feelings were reciprocated and she and Rose had been an item for many years, but that did not make them mutually exclusive. Rose was upfront from the beginning about her desire for an open relationship with someone she could trust, even before she and Pearl did become an official couple, and Pearl didn’t care (even if she had to struggle with her more jealous tendencies). Pearl was free, encouraged even, to pursue intimate relationships with other people as well, and there were one or two others (mostly Garnet and eventually Amethyst) that she slept with during their time together, but Rose was always her priority, her love, and she was Rose’s.

The three of them, herself, Rose and Garnet, all decided to bunk together after college and not long after, Amethyst, a runaway teen kicked out of her home after her bisexuality was brought to light to her religious parents, came into their lives when Rose found her wandering the streets and the two hit it off, her bleeding heart never one that could stomach a girl not yet out of her teens all alone in the world without a home. The four of them were thick as thieves, their contrasting personalities playing well off one another and the laxness of personal boundaries strengthening their bonds. They’d all found their way into each other’s beds at some point, but it was more than casual sex for all of them. It was camaraderie, an embrace of what society at large considered different or unclean. They were a family, a strange and magnificent family that could not be torn apart from one another. Not that there weren’t complications that set to do just that, and this was where Greg Universe entered the picture.

Greg was not a bad man; he was actually a very good man considering some of the others Pearl had met in her life. Still, there was always a part of her that would hold some grudge over him for what transpired after he and Rose met on the beach, that day when he was giving a concert that nobody else showed up for and Rose just happened to stumble across. They hit it off and Greg started to spend more time with her after that, Rose’s attention split between her and him. Pearl wanted nothing more than to be accepting of her partner’s decisions, but the all too apparent truth of the matter was that she hated it. Hated the extra attention Greg received in comparison to the other flings she had had with other men, hated when Greg moved in with the four of them and his personal belongings started to invade every corner of the house. When Rose announced that she was pregnant with Greg’s child…

Her pager started to buzz just then, almost causing her to drop her cigarette. Pulling it out of her pocket she was greeted by a short but disconcerting message; “Steven crying, has been the past half hour, HELP.” She sighed and checked her watch, still ten minutes left on her break, hopefully enough to calm Steven down. She had calmed him down in less time, this should be no problem.

She could hear him even before the elevator arrived on the second floor, the only other person in the elevator, a woman she had seen around some of the third floor offices, scratching her ear at the sound.

“Sounds like a baby pig dying.” She said.

Pearl fought the urge to slug the bitch for insulting her baby in such a way and merely responded with a grunt, running out of the elevator and not looking back as she rounded the corner to the daycare. The sound of wailing only got worse the closer she got to the source.

“Oh, Pearl,” Martha said once she burst through the door, “thank Heaven, Steven woke up from his nap and just snapped when he couldn’t see you anywhere.” Were this incident any earlier in his infancy, Pearl might feel her heart burst at something so cute. But she was an older, wiser woman at this point, and such unintentional flattery from such a tiny being could not sway her as easily anymore.

She mouthed her apology to Martha as she approached the crib she had left Steven in not so long ago, hoping that just seeing her again would be enough for him to calm down. This was another mistake, though not one of the major one’s she had made today.

“Shhh, Steven, it’s okay, shhh.” She tried to soothe him as she took him in her arms, bouncing him in the soft way he usually liked, but it was for naught. Steven cried and cried, until Pearl’s shirt was entirely drenched in tears, and no matter what she would do, sing or hum or any other thing that would soothe him, he could not be sated.

Finally, after five minutes past her break, she could delay herself no longer and decided to take Steven to the office with her. If he wasn’t happy here maybe he’d have a better chance calming down in a room with just the two of them.

 _This_ was mistake number three.

 

In hindsight, she thought as she was driving with Steven in the backseat towards their home, she probably should’ve called in for a personal day or something. Steven’s mood from the very beginning was trepidation for what happened when the Mayor came out to see why Pearl hadn’t been responding to his memos.

She arrived back at the office just as he was stepping out of his, apologizing again for being late from her lunch. Dewey seemed taken aback at first when he saw the baby in her arms and asked, hesitantly, if it was hers.

“Oh, no,” she said shaking her head while adjusting Steven slightly, “he’s a friend’s, I’m just watching over him.” Dewey looked relieved to hear that and began to coo, as best he could, over Steven, whose lip was still trembling like a leak in a dam held back by nothing more than a mere bandage.

“Well aren’t you just… adorable,” Dewey said, holding a finger over his nose as if expecting Steven to do something with it. “My, you are… a baby… yes, indeed.”

Pearl was about to ask if she could keep Steven up in the office with her when the bundle of joy did something that, if it were anyone else, might have cost her her job right then and there. He threw up.

Threw up, right on her boss’s suit. Pearl stood with one hand over her mouth, mortified as Dewey stood still, eyes wide and staring a thousand miles away.

“I-I-I am… so sorry sir, I-”

“Would you hold that thought, please…” Dewey held a finger up and slowly stepped around his secretary, walking slowly at first down the hall and then making a B-line for the men’s restroom. The sound of violent vomiting followed soon after, and Pearl was left to stare down at Steven’s still crying face, wiping a small bit of puke from his lips with her sleeve. She requested the rest of the day off after that to attend to him, and the Mayor, returning from the bathroom with only his undershirt and pants, respectfully agreed.

He had finally exhausted himself just as they were pulling up the driveway, Pearl pausing a moment after turning the ignition off to take a deep breath, a good whiff of baby feces and other such smells intruding her nostrils. If there was ever a more apt definition for the phrase “blessing and a curse,” it was a baby.

“What am I gonna do with you?” She asked him from the rear view mirror, seeing all the snot and dry tears still on his face and clothes. He was a mess, but at least he had an excuse she thought, looking over herself in the driver’s side mirror. She was a larger mess, but that was a whole other matter.

She got out of the car and unbuckled Steven from the baby seat, holding him as if he were a time bomb. She shut the door and her finger lingered over the lock button on the remote as she took a look at the lawn. The grass needed a trimming and the little pond that came with the place had gone green. Everything was a mess, it seemed.

The car beeped after pressing the lock button twice and Pearl’s heels clicked against the hard concrete walkway as she walked to the front door. With some difficulty, she fumbled through the keyring until she found the house key, easing it into the lock as she kept an eye on Steven and his quivering lip, then nudging the door open with her hip once she heard the click.

It was a quarter to three, Amethyst should probably be up at this point, and yet she saw no trace of her as she stepped inside. Only a blue TV screen and a VHS player that had been left on.

“Ugh, Amethyst…” She shook her head, guessing (correctly) what her roommate had been up to before the two of them had returned home. She didn’t mind that exactly, it was leaving the TV and the player on afterwards.

She turned both off and went to the kitchen, leaving her purse on the table and placing Steven in his high chair. He hadn’t had lunch yet, she remembered, probably one of the reasons he had been so fussy the past hour.

“Amethyst,” she called to the back of the house, “we’re home!”

She could hear some shuffling down the hall as Amethyst’s door opened and the shorter woman stepped into what she assumed was the bathroom, most likely to wash the smell of labia from her fingers. It was either funny or sad how Amethyst thought she could hide her habits from her after they’d known each other and lived together for so long. At least she had the decency to stop when other people were around (something she definitely had to be told to do during the first few weeks of her stay).

Pearl prepared a bottle of baby formula for Steven as her roommate bided her time in the bathroom. He wasn’t quite ready for solid foods, though if the books she’d read were any indication he was getting close. Teaching him how to feed would probably be an episode that would make today look like child’s play, but Pearl didn’t think much about the future (that was Garnet’s job as a professional worrywart).  If any time period concerned her it was the past, and she hated how it haunted her so.

A flush came from down the hall followed by the bathroom sink water running (she hoped she was actually washing her hands this time) followed then by Amethyst sauntering to the kitchen, wearing her usual white tank top and black sweatpants, an amiable look on her face like a peccant child trying desperately to pretend she hadn’t got her hand caught in the cookie jar.

“S’up P?” She greeted with her hands buried in the sides of her sweatpants, her face turning into an enormous grin when she saw the baby at his throne. “Aaaaah, Ste-man! Gimme five!” She held her hand close to Steven’s face, who would normally fling his hand at it the way the short woman had taught him to, but he was in no mood at the moment.

“I’d be careful,” Pearl said, putting the formula in the microwave, “the last person who stuck their hand in front of his face got barf all over his suit.”

“Aw, sick.” Amethyst laughed. “I’m starting to rub off on you, little guy.” She tussled his hair, another action that would normally earn a giggle or two, but the baby remained stolid. He really was in a bad mood.

“So I guess that’s why you’re home so early?” She turned to Pearl, who was attentively watching the bottle spin slowly around the microwave.

“Yeah it’s… been a day.” She opened the microwave a millisecond before the timer went off.

“ _A day_ ,” Amethyst repeated, sitting down at the chair adjacent to Steven and scooching into the table. “Gimme the scoop.” Pearl chuckled as she picked Steven off the high chair and positioned his head for the bottle.

“Not much of a scoop, he had a fussy day and it ended with him vomiting all over my boss.”

“The _Mayor_?!” The shorter woman gasped. Pearl nodded her head in a slow and embarrassed notion. “Oh. My. GOD, P! Tell me you took a picture!”

“Amethyst, this is serious!”

“No, no, wait, there’s security cams in your space or whatever, right? You just schmooze your way into whoever’s in charge of that and ask for a copy.”

“Amethyst!”

“Ah, come on, maybe the head honcho’s a hot chick or something, you never know!” Pearl shook her head, putting the bottle on the table once Steven had had his fill and patting his back gently to burp him. “Give you two-hundred bucks to let him barf on you.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” The shorter woman fell into a hysteric laughing fit.

“Since when do you have two-hundred dollars in the first place?” Pearl asked, intended as meaningless ribbing on her part but her roommate’s sudden silence meant her tone wasn’t what it should have been.

“You’d be surprised.” Amethyst folded her arms and turned her head away from Pearl. Money and especially jobs was a sore subject for her, and Pearl had already crossed one line. Her mood was contagious, sending an already agitated Pearl further on the offensive.

“You hardly leave the house at all, except for your bi-weekly visits to the video store.”

“You’d be surprised.” Amethyst repeated, slower and with a bit more fury.

“I’d be more surprised if you actually contributed to the bills once in a while. Or if you actually applied yourself to hold down a job for more than a week.”

“What’d I fucking do to you, bean pole?!” Amethyst snapped. “Just ‘cause you had a bad day don’t think you can take all your shit out on me!”

“And there you go, deflecting again.” Their eyes met in a furious glaring match. “If you had half an ounce of responsibility in you I probably wouldn’t have to take Steven with me everywhere I go.”

“I never said you had to!” The shorter woman knocked her chair backwards as she stood up. “I could watch over Steven anytime if you fucking trusted me for once!”

“Maybe I’d trust you more if all you did everyday wasn’t masturbating and watching TV!”

“You better butt out before I-”

“Before you what, hmm? What are you going to do to prove me wrong?”

“You don’t fucking know what I’d do!”

“Tell me then, what would you do?”

“You know what I’d do?!”

“WHAT?!”

“I’LL FUCKING TELL YOU, I…”

Neither of them were able to figure out what she’d do, because at that moment Steven, who had received some heavy pats from an oblivious and angry Pearl, staged an encore performance of what he had done to Mayor Dewey not an hour ago all over her back. The two women ceased arguing and stared at each other for a good minute. Pearl could feel the bile slowly running down her leg and Amethyst was left wondering whether to apologize or crack a joke to diffuse the tension.

“You owe me two-hundred dollars.” Pearl beat her to the punch.

Amethyst snorted, trying to hold back a laugh that exploded into a guffaw. She would have stopped if Pearl hadn’t joined in, the two laughing as their anger at one another fizzled away, until there was nothing left but the vomit on Pearl’s back.

 

The taller woman excused herself to go take a brief shower and change as Amethyst was left in charge of Steven, making another bottle of formula for him, taking care not to burp him so rough this time.

All the while, her argument with Pearl repeated itself in Amethyst’s mind. Particularly the parts concerning her responsibility and her lack of a steady income. She’d had plenty of odd jobs over the years; a sign holder for a cell phone company, an underground wrestler, a ditch digger, all of them short term and all of them not paying exceptionally well.

She could blame this on many things; laziness, a lack of motivation, the fact that the job market was built upon knowing people and references which were especially hard when you had no proper job experience to speak of, but in the back of her head she knew what the answer most likely was. She had a fear of inadequacy. A fear of trying, really trying, at something and falling short. That was all her life had amounted to at this point, the entire reason she ended up in this house with all these people and a baby. Her life had been one fuck up after the next, starting with her very conception (as her father said once, in a drunken stupor). What was the use of trying for anything when she already knew she was a failure?

Pearl’s footsteps coming from the hall snapped Amethyst out of her thoughts. She shook her head and put the baby formula in the fridge just as the taller woman came into the kitchen, out of her work clothes and wearing a plain white T-shirt and brown leggings.

“You okay?” Amethyst asked her, seeing how exhaustion still hung over her roommate.

“Yeah.” Pearl sat down as she rubbed her face, giving a small smile to Steven when the baby cooed at her, almost as if he were apologizing for before. Her smile faded as Amethyst sat down in the chair across from her.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she reached over and took her roommate’s hand. “You were right, I was tired and frustrated and I took it out on you. You didn’t deserve it.” Amethyst shrugged and waved her hand dismissively.

“No worries, P. I shouldn’t have been so sensitive when you made that crack at me. Shouldn’t dish it out if you can’t take it.”

“It wasn’t a joke though,” Pearl looked down at the table, “I was lashing out at you on purpose and goading you when I knew it hurt your feelings.”

“It’s okay, P, it’s really okay. I’m already over it, and I’m sorry too.” The shorter woman ran her thumb along her friend’s palm, remembering the prank that day when they were painting the baby room for Steven and Amethyst asked Pearl if she’d like her palm red.

It hadn’t been that long ago since then, and yet it felt like a century.

“So what else happened today?” Amethyst asked. Pearl recounted everything that happened to her and Steven in more detail, getting to the part where Mayor Dewey had left a bouquet of roses on her desk that especially irked her roommate.

“Is that chump still hitting on you?”

“It’s not that bad. He’s like a little kid who has no idea what to do around a crush more than anything else. It could be much worse.”

“You’ve been working him for what, three years now? Guy’s gotta take the hint.”

“He’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the socket, and that stays between us.”

“You want me to go beat him up for you?” Amethyst cracked her knuckles.

“No, you may not go beat up the Mayor.”

“Aw, please?” Pearl laughed. Amethyst leaned back in her chair with her arms behind her head, with a subtle sense of satisfaction for having made her roommate feel better about it. The harassment she received from the Mayor was one thing that always stung her, but the addition of the roses...

Pearl finished the story in another minute, giving a bit more detail as to Dewey’s reaction to Steven’s gift to him that amused Amethyst.

“Karma’s a bitch.” She said, going to the fridge to get a soda.

“Amethyst, please, don’t curse in front of Steven.”

“He’s not gonna remember it. You want one?”

“That – no thank you – isn’t entirely true. He may lack long term memory at this stage in his life but he’s still retaining much of our body and verbal language.”

“You’ve been reading that book too much.” The shorter woman said as she opened a can of ginger ale and chugged half of it down her throat.

“I’m just saying,” Pearl said, “I don’t want his first word to be the F word or something like that.”

“Ya mean, **FUCK**!” She had timed ‘fuck’ with a well-placed and boisterous burp. Steven giggled and clapped his hands in amusement. “Ha, see that, he loves it!”

“Oh, really.” Pearl grimaced and rubbed her eyes again, groaning as the first signs of a migraine began to take form.

“Why don’t you go take a nap or somethin’?” Amethyst suggested.

“Naps are wasteful,” Pearl said as she went to the medicine cabinet. “Besides it wouldn’t help, I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in a few weeks as it is.”

“Jesus,” Amethyst said, “no wonder you’ve been so crabby.” Pearl frowned with her back still turned to Amethyst. She let it slide, finding her prescription and preparing a glass of water for herself. “Maybe you could read a book, that’s relaxing I guess.”

“The only books I’ve been reading have been about babies.” She dropped two pills in the water and stirred the glass around like a fine wine, waiting for it to dissolve.

“Shit, P, nothing makes you calm!” Amethyst joked. Pearl titled her head as she drank, as if to say her roommate wasn’t wrong. Amethyst thought about the things that made her calm. She and Pearl had very different personalities, there was no denying that, and the things that relaxed Amethyst like some heavy rock or excessively violent video games to get out some catharsis probably wouldn’t do the trick for Pearl. There was, however, one other thing she could think of that Pearl might actually enjoy.

“When was the last time you had a little ménage à moi?” She said.

“A wha?” Pearl asked after finishing her glass.

“You know, did some work under the hood? Buttered your muffin? Fanned the fur?” Pearl stared at her dumbfounded, looking at her roommate like she was speaking a completely different language. Amethyst sighed and reached down between her legs, cupping where her vagina was and making a honking noise. Pearl looked like she was going to fall out of her skin.

“Ugh, that’s just vulgar!”

“Aw, come on, I know you do it, you know I do it, everybody does it what’s the big deal?”

“I,” she looked at Steven and lowered her voice, “Yes, I… do it, but some of us aren’t as liberal about talking about it as you are.”

“I mean, I’m not trying to be crude or whatever, I just wanna know if you think that’d help.” Pearl opened her mouth to say something but stopped. She opened and closed it for some time as she tried to sort through the complicated minefield that was her sex life, or lack thereof.

“I don’t know. Masturbation never really worked all that well for me to begin with. It’s just…”

“Not the same?” Amethyst finished for her, and Pearl agreed. She was right about that. Amethyst was no stranger to some DIY time (Ms. Peaches could attest to that), but it was still only second-rate to the actual thing. As a teen it was pretty much her only method of release, but after that first time she’d done it with one of the football players back in high school, there was a time when she couldn’t even look at regular porn.

It had been a long time since she’d had some release in the traditional (or untraditional depending on her partner) way, and she didn’t have to assume the same was true for Pearl as well. And that was when it hit her.

“Well, maybe… I could help you?”

Amethyst waited for some extreme response from her roommate. Pearl was by no means a prude (she had plenty of scars and bruises to prove that) but the last partner Pearl had most likely been with was Rose herself, and the two of them had always been incredibly close (being girlfriends and all probably helped). She thought, perhaps, that her suggestion might trigger Pearl the same way the bouquet Dewey left for her would, and that she’d have to go through another period of uncertainty as to whether she should give Pearl some space to calm down or apologize and pretend like it never happened. She hated those phases between the two of them, and she especially didn’t want a repeat now that things were still sort of messy but getting better for both of them.

To her surprise and relief, Pearl did not react suddenly. She didn’t lash out, freeze, look angry or sad, she merely stared at Amethyst with an unreadable expression that was somewhere between bemusement and intrigue.

“You mean… you want us to…”

“If you wanna…” Amethyst shrugged. There was a silence that both women could feel over the room like the thickest fog over the beach at sunrise. Pearl’s face still gave no signs as to whether she was considering the idea or appalled by it, and Amethyst couldn’t take the awkward tranquility. “Forget it, it was a du-”

“Okay.” Now it was Amethyst who bore a look of bemusement and intrigue.

“Huh?”

“Okay.” Pearl repeated.

“Okay as in… okay?”

“Yes, okay.” Amethyst leaned in closer to the table.

“As in… you wanna do it?”

“Amethyst, we’ve had sex before.” Pearl gave a light chuckle.

“Yeah, I know, but…” She was going to bring up her anxieties about asking such a thing but stopped herself before she could potentially shoot her own foot. “Nuthin’, all right! We’re doin’ this!” She clapped her hands together and jumped out of her chair. “You lay Ste-man down for a nap and I’ll get everything all sexy-like. My room in five.”

“No, no, no,” Pearl said, “not your room.”

“What, what’s wrong with my room?”

“Well apart from the piles of dirty laundry and trash lying on the floor-”

“It’s organized chaos.” Amethyst interrupted.

“When was the last time you washed your sheets?” Pearl finished.

“Pffft, I washed them like a week ago, please.” Pearl crossed her arms and looked at Amethyst. “I did!” She raised her right eyebrow. “I mean… I’m pretty sure I did…” Now Pearl was tapping her finger on her arm. “Last week was… Garnet’s birthday right?” Pearl stared at her. “All right, fine, your room,” Amethyst gave up and ran down the hall, “just gimme five minutes okay?!”

“Okay.” Pearl called back. She looked down at Steven and was thankful more than ever that he would not be able to remember this. He looked back up at her, tired and disinterested in what was going on around him. He’d probably start crying again if she didn’t put him down for a well overdue nap, one that he would hopefully stay in this time.

“Come on, sweetie.” She heaved him up in her arms and carried him to his room, the first door on the left in the hallway. Pearl’s room was the last on the right, and she could hear whatever Amethyst was doing from behind its closed door. She hoped it wasn’t anything rough, like how Amethyst usually preferred it. She could do rough on occasion and she found it fun when her heart was in it, but after today’s misadventure if she was going to do this she would prefer it to be as casual and low maintenance as it could be.

Amethyst had been correct when she guessed that Pearl hadn’t had sex ever since Steven was born, and even a long while before that, and it wasn’t a major loss in her life that she had been waiting for any excuse such as this to reclaim. It was uncharacteristically thoughtful of the shorter woman, however, to offer something so intimate when she thought Pearl could use the relief, and there was a part of her that mostly agreed to it so as not to disappoint her or make her feel she had made her mad by suggesting it.

There was, when she was being honest, also a part of her that had been reawakened when Amethyst did make the suggestion. A part that did crave for it, for its own particular reasons. A part that had become her own worst enemy these past few months as she tried to sort out her complexities. A part that assured her there was nothing complex about it all. Or at least that it shouldn’t be.

She sang a soft lullaby to Steven as the boy drifted off to sleep, wrapped in a pink blanket and sucking on his favorite pacifier. A mobile with a family of lions paraded slowly over his head, providing the music for Pearl’s soft symphony. The room had been painted in an assortment of colors all throughout the spectrum of the rainbow, Rose never being one to go for the traditional gender specific colors expected of children.

When the music ended Steven was sound asleep, breathing lightly as Pearl had to fight the urge to kiss his cheek again. He was a treasure, a shining spot in her life whenever she felt her bleakest. He had not always been so, but now she couldn’t imagine him any other way. With a sigh she left the crib’s side and stepped out into the hall, closing the door as quietly as she could so that nothing would disturb his slumber. If she knew Amethyst and her sexual habits, she knew that things were going to get a little louder in this house in the next few minutes.

 

“‘EEEEEEEYIMNOTREADY!” Pearl nearly fell to the floor for how hard Amethyst forced her bedroom door shut when she tried to get in.

“Ow, Amethyst, keep it down, you don’t want to wake Steven up.”

“Dude could sleep through a hurricane, don’t come barging into places without knocking!”

“Don’t come into _my_ bedroom without knocking?”

“Damn right, now stay out there till I tell you!” Pearl shook her head and leaned against the wall directly facing her door. Amethyst was still messing about with something or things on the other side, mumbling to herself and practically speaking in tongues while she did God knows what to her room. She never usually went to this great amount of effort for her or the others whenever they had sex in the past, only on special circumstances like birthdays or holidays. Pearl could appreciate her roommate going the extra mile to help relieve her of some stress, but if it was at the expense of her room she was starting to have second thoughts about it.

“Come in.” Amethyst beckoned shortly after the noise of her fumbling around had stopped. She had put on a sultry tone that made her sound like a completely different person almost. Pearl was not totally unconvinced the person laying on her bed with one arm supporting her head and the other resting on her hip, drawing special attention to the black lace bra and panties she wore, was someone else entirely from the girl who nearly knocked her on her ass five seconds ago.

The room was further evidence of this. Lit with some of Pearl’s favorite fragrance candles and carnation petals tastefully placed on the floor leading up to the bed. She didn’t care for the mess the petals made, truth be told, but at least they were few enough that cleaning them up wouldn’t be too much of a hassle afterward.

Romeo herself was staring through half-lidded eyes while her long, silver-dyed hair hung over one of them and down to her breasts. Her lips had been covered in purple lipstick, the kind that would leave marks wherever they touched, and the numerous tattoos the shorter woman had gotten for herself over the years were all bare for her to see (save for one that was slightly obscured by her bra).

“Well,” Amethyst said, her voice arousing the first twitch from Pearl’s clitoris. “What are you waiting for?”

Pearl stepped inside and shut the door behind her, swallowing a mass of saliva that suddenly formed in her mouth and stepped closer to the bed, unsure whether she should be doing something sexy in turn or just leave it to Amethyst who was already doing a bang up job for both of them. She lingered at the edge of the bed, at the tail end of the carnation trail, as she admired Amethyst’s almost nude body. She’d forgotten how much she missed it.

“Come here.” Amethyst motioned her forward with a finger. A finger that could do and had done so much for her. A finger that Pearl wanted to take into her hands and suck on almost immediately. She complied with Amethyst’s request while also wondering what had gotten into her. The rush of desire that coursed through her body the closer she got to her roommate, the closer she got to those luscious lips. She wanted to kiss those beautiful lips. She wanted those beautiful lips to destroy her.

Amethyst, in a slight break of character, rolled off the bed the moment Pearl’s hand brushed against her thigh, the taller woman denied her chance to initiate first contact.

“Nah uh uh, Pearl,” Amethyst wagged her finger, “I’ll be the one calling the shots tonight.” It’s three-thirty in the afternoon, Pearl might have said if Amethyst’s deliberately slow walk hadn’t distracted her. The smaller woman was definitely getting some sadistic pleasure in the way she moved her ass from side to side every step she took towards the closet. Her enormous hips bouncing left to right, right to left, and then worst of all, she bent downward so that her entire ass and a bit of her vagina creeping out of her panties were in full view for Pearl to gawk at.

“Achoo!” Pearl sneezed, covering her nose with her hand as though she’d said a curse.

“God bless you.” Amethyst said looking behind her, her tongue purposefully sticking out between her teeth as she said ‘bless.’ If there was a God, Pearl decided, He’d probably have to work overtime to bless her after this.

Amethyst reared up just as a random hip hop song began to play from a boom box she had hidden in the closet. Pearl didn’t know the song, which sounded like every generic hip hop track on the radio these days, and if she did she probably wouldn’t recognize it over the way Amethyst was dancing in perfect synchronization to it.

Pearl sat on her bed, mesmerized at her roommate’s movements. She was sure they all had weird names like the spinach patch or the weed whacker or something like that, all she knew for certain was how good Amethyst looked doing them. Pearl had studied dance when she was a little girl and could tell that the shorter woman had no such experience, but what she lacked in training she made up for in enthusiasm. Shaking her hips, moving her core on beat with the bass, running her hands all along her body and hair. It was intoxicating, and it only got worse when she began to slowly remove the straps for her bra.

Her left hand creeped up to her right shoulder, passively moving it back down so that the first strap was down to her elbow. She repeated the same motion with the other strap, bringing it down to her elbow and then reaching both arms behind her back, her cleavage heavily pronounced by the act. Pearl had mostly kept still on the bed, her hands clutching the sheets. She clutched them harder when Amethyst had unbuckled her bra and let it fall gently to the floor.

“Achoo!” She sneezed again, and Amethyst was quick to bless (though she was hardly an authority on that matter either).

Her black panties were next. To the beat, Amethyst rocked her hips from side to side, until her thumbs were hooked on both sides of the underwear. She slid them down, slower than she had the straps of her bra, until they were loose enough that she let them fall to her feet. Pearl hadn’t noticed before, but it looked like Amethyst had painted her toe nails the same color as her lips. A small detail, and very hastily applied by the looks of it, but it still worked its charm over the taller woman. Just as Amethyst stepping out of her panties and kicking them up into the air did. She caught it without looking, twirling it in her hand until she gently tossed it on the bed right in front of Pearl. The smaller woman smirked as her roommate squirmed. She was ready, but Amethyst wasn’t quite done toying with her yet.

She danced a little more as the rest of the song played out, letting her naked body entice the taller woman a little more before creeping her way to the edge of the bed.

“Lay down.” She commanded. Pearl did as she was told, still watching Amethyst who gave a low, alluring laugh at how compliant her roommate was being. Pearl instinctively spread her legs apart, still fully clothed herself, and started to breathe slower as her heart ran a marathon.

It was a challenge to steady her breathing as Amethyst began a slow crawl on the bed towards her, like a wild animal about to pounce on its prey. At this point Pearl probably wouldn’t mind if she did pounce, the tension was rising inside her and the arousal was too much to bear. She hadn’t realized how much she apparently needed it, but the more Amethyst teased her the more she craved for the shorter woman to get on with it.

Amethyst brushed her hand against Pearl’s foot, running it under her leggings till she reached her thigh. Pearl shook at her touch, the smoothness of her hand against her leg (which she regretted not shaving for a while, though her roommate didn’t seem to mind), how even that small act of contact after all that buildup made her heart feel like it would burst.

Amethyst lifted Pearl’s legs from the bed and gently pulled the taller woman closer to her.

“Oh!” Pearl gasped involuntarily, eliciting another low laugh from Amethyst. The shorter woman pressed her hands along Pearl’s thighs as though she were massaging them, enjoying the almost guttural moans from the usually prim and proper secretary, then lifted Pearl’s legs again, this time to remove her leggings and toss them behind her on the floor.

Pearl waited on bated breath to see what Amethyst would do next. She started to run her arms through her long, silver hair but Amethyst stopped her. “Not yet,” the shorter woman said, lowering herself downward until her face was an inch away from Pearl’s underwear. She wore a dark pink color, plain but cute all the same, and already a bit wet from what Amethyst hoped had been a good performance.

“Three’s a crowd,” she said to Pearl’s underwear, slowly removing it while being careful to avoid Pearl’s pussy in another intentional act of torture as the taller woman saw it. Amethyst retrieved her own panties as well, combining them with Pearl’s and beginning to grind against the sheets as she considered them both.

Whatever she had been thinking she tossed both pairs aside, resuming her slow crawl back to Pearl’s vagina. Pearl felt anxious the closer her roommate got to it, bracing herself for the first touch of the smaller woman’s lips or tongue, the first wave of pleasure that she had been waiting for the moment she saw Amethyst lying on her bed. Amethyst stuck her tongue out as her face got closer to it, closer and closer until…

She raised her head over it and began to lift Pearl’s t-shirt up, licking a trail from above her pussy up to her abdomen. Pearl wanted to smack her head for teasing her so shamefully, but she was too lost in her own arousal to raise much of a fuss. She helped Amethyst remove her shirt, tossing it aside where it fell next to Amethyst’s bra. Amethyst lingered over Pearl for a moment, neither saying a word or making a sound except for Pearl’s heavy breathing. Then Amethyst continued where she left off, licking and kissing a trail up Pearl’s chest and making a small detour at her breasts.

“Achoo!” Pearl sneezed again, quite unexpectedly and all over her roommate’s face.

“Ha, gross.” Amethyst said while she wiped the gunk off her face with her arm. Pearl sat up and started to apologize.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry I-” Amethyst held her finger over Pearl’s lips, gently pushing against them to guide the flustered woman on her back once more.

“Just take it easy, P.” Her finger traced down Pearl’s lower lip and to her throat, making circles just above her breasts. “You’re really pretty, Pearl.”

Pearl gasped a little at this random compliment and smiled up at Amethyst, placing her hand on the girl’s waist.

“You’re beautiful too, Amethyst.” Amethyst snorted and rolled her eyes, blushing as she tried to play it off.

“Why do you always gotta one-up me like that?” She asked, shaking her head. Her wild hair hung low, grazing Pearl’s forehead.

“Maybe I’m just more romantic than you.” Pearl said as she pet Amethyst’s back with the tip of her fingernails, enjoying the shudder it sent down the smaller woman’s spine.

“Oh, yeah, you think so?” Amethyst said with a wicked smile.

“I know s-MMM!” Pearl’s retort was cut short when Amethyst’s lips pressed against hers for their first kiss in quite a while. It started rough, the younger woman’s usual M.O., but slowly adjusted to Pearl’s sensitivities as she returned the kiss. Amethyst’s lips were as soft as she remembered, as soft as every part of her alluring body and Pearl was no slouch either. The older woman kissed with precise efficiency, knowing exactly when and where to use her tongue and suck against Amethyst’s lower lip the way she liked it. The kiss seemed to go on for hours until Amethyst finally broke it, to both of their displeasure. The shorter woman had better things in mind.

“How bout I make you eat those words?” She laid down on top of Pearl and moved her mouth to her left ear, licking her lobe before whispering softly, “How bout I eat you?” Pearl stifled another sneeze as best she could.

Amethyst kissed along Pearl’s neck as her hand moved downward. The smaller woman took in her roommate’s scent for the first time since the two were so close. Her hair smelled like peaches and her skin a sort of peppermint, both of Pearl’s favorite shampoo and body soap. Amethyst hit herself mentally for not thinking to shower as well but it was too late for that now. Unless, of course, Pearl was up for a buddy shower. Maybe later.

For Pearl’s part, Amethyst smelled like a mix of forest pine deodorant and pizza grease. It was peculiar, and a bit pungent at this close range, but not to the point that she wanted to stop what they were doing. Amethyst could have spent three weeks sleeping in the town dump and she probably wouldn’t tell her to stop what she was doing now that they both were in the groove (the smaller woman would probably laugh if she said that out loud).

Nothing but Amethyst’s middle fingernail touched Pearl’s skin as she led her hand back to Pearl’s thigh. She had to adjust herself a little since Pearl was significantly taller than her (everyone was significantly taller than her, she thought) but kept Pearl in the dark with a few more well placed kisses underneath her chin and on her neck. Daring herself to get a little rougher, she nibbled at Pearl chest line, laughing into it when her roommate gave a yelp.

“Not so rough, please.” Pearl said through labored breaths. Were she in complete control of today’s activities she might challenge this request but she wasn’t doing this for herself (mostly). The taller woman had only scratched the surface of how rough Amethyst could be during the other times they’d had sex, but she would have to save the rest for another day (she so wanted to introduce Pearl to her whip at some point, though).

“You got it, P.” Amethyst pecked the bite mark she’d left on Pearl in a way of apology before making other smaller pecks to her right breast. She lay her head on it for a moment and gave a heavy sigh. “I missed you guys.” She said with a coy smile, Pearl lifting her head up to see what she was doing.

“Do you have to talk to my boobs or underwear like they’re real?” She asked.

“You shush; this is an A-B conversation going on down here. Actually,” she glanced at her other breast, “are you sure you’re not a C?” Pearl laughed.

“You’re such a dork.”

“Takes one to know one, nerd.” After this Amethyst kissed the space between Pearl’s breasts and then to the left, sucking and licking it to drive her roommate wild. It worked wonders.

“G-God…” Pearl’s hand reached upward to Amethyst’s hair, gently tugging on it the more she set to work on her chest. She could feel the smaller woman smiling the more Pearl’s body swayed in favor of her kissing, the way she slowly thrusted her pelvis upward to try and catch Amethyst’s leg. Her hand was still near Pearl’s thigh, not quite touching it yet but grazing her knuckles alongside it.

She moved to her other breast just as Pearl’s moans started to sound like a foreign language (which was not an impossibility considering she had studied French in college). She flicked Pearl’s right nipple as she kissed the other, feeling her own pelvis move on its own accord when she saw it harden.

Pearl was growing impatient with the foreplay, she found her roommate’s arm that was close to her thigh and grabbed it, drawing Amethyst’s eyes to hers and the look of sheer desire and almost domination if she didn’t get her satisfaction right then and there. The uptight secretary struggling to keep herself awake was long gone, replaced by an animal that Amethyst thought had long been tamed. And she loved it.

With a smirk Amethyst pulled her arm out of Pearl’s reach, clicking her tongue at how impatient her roommate was being. Then she climbed back down the bed, her eyes never leaving Pearl’s, and came to a stop between her legs.

“Amethyst,” Pearl whispered, apparently trying her best not to yell with Steven just down the hall. “Please…”

“Please, what?” Amethyst asked, wrapping her arms around each of her legs and kissing her thighs.

“I…” Pearl kept moaning as Amethyst kept kissing, trying her best to avoid glancing at what she, too, desired the most. “I need you to…”

“What you need me to do P?” Her thumb slid along Pearl’s left knee, making the taller woman jerk it upwards a little. “Do you want me to… gobble you up?”

“Please don’t say it like th-ah!” Amethyst was close now, goading Pearl with a small but noticeable lick.

“Say it…”

“Am-Amethyst… gobble me… up.” Amethyst’s smile was the size of a drunk from Glasgow.

“You got it.”

It started with a rapid fire of kisses and escalated to her tongue as Amethyst lapped around her labia, kissing the folds of her pussy and easing her way to the clitoris. Pearl felt a sensation inside her she hadn’t in a long time. It was mostly sore considering she hadn’t had sex like this in a good year, but it was a mixture of slight pain with euphoric pleasure that Pearl could abide. She thrust into Amethyst’s mouth as the younger woman showed her prowess that put women twice her age and ten times the experience to shame.

“Fuck!” Pearl blurted out as her back lurched upward. Amethyst had just made contact with her roommate’s clit, which had always been rather sensitive.

“Ohoho,” Amethyst drew her lips away from Pearl’s. “Naughty word, P. Didn’t know you had it in ya.”

“I liked what I had in me a second ago.” Pearl said through a raspy breath.

“Woof!” Amethyst raised her eyebrows before going back in, placing her right hand underneath Pearl’s back to massage it gently while her left provided backup to Pearl’s vagina. Pearl cursed again and clenched a fistful of Amethyst’s silver hair, sending a pulse down to Amethyst’s clit that made her entire body shiver. She wanted her own release so bad, wanted to multitask between herself and Pearl but powered through her desire. She needed it more than Amethyst did, her constant unintelligible moaning and cursing proof enough of that.

“Amethyst!” Pearl held tightly to Amethyst’s hair, her lips and her tongue welling pure bliss and pleasure inside her. Amethyst felt the same. The way Pearl’s legs rubbed against her and the almost inhuman sounds she made with each thrust or kiss leading to what could have been Amethyst’s first audio induced orgasm if her roommate kept it up (and she hoped she would).

“God!” Pearl’s hand shook as Amethyst went deeper and deeper with her tongue, accelerating her speed as she did. She was laughing like a madman and which got Pearl’s funny bone as well, the two women laughing wildly as Pearl was brought to her first orgasm. The soreness and the pleasure combined into one as Pearl thrust her pussy against Amethyst’s mouth, savoring their connection until her heartrate returned to normal and the intense feeling subsiding within her.

“Ah, shit…” Pearl said as she caught her breath, Amethyst rising up and licking her lips so that Pearl could see her.

“My compliments to the chef.” She said, also licking the fingers that had helped her roommate cum.

“Rule one of sexual analogies,” Pearl beckoned Amethyst to lie down next to her, which her roommate happily obliged, “never mention food.”

“What if you’re into food fetishes?”

“See a therapist.”

“What if,” Amethyst spaced her comments with soft kisses on Pearl’s shoulder and neck, “your therapist is into food fetishes?”

“What are you talking about?” Amethyst paused between her kisses, nodding her head to the room next door, which belonged to their third roommate. “Garnet’s not into food fetishes is she?” Pearl stared at Amethyst who raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Noooooooo, is she?!”

“I dunno, why don’t we ask her when she gets home from shrink class?” Pearl scoffed in a playful manner, shoving her hand in Amethyst’s face as the smaller woman got her yuks.

“Stark naked I presume?”

“Is there any other way to ask something like that?” Amethyst kissed Pearl’s palm and fingers, guiding the hand down to her bosom and holding it against her heart. Pearl gently massaged the smaller woman’s breast as they stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“This was very thoughtful of you, Amethyst.” Pearl finally said.

“I have my moments.” Amethyst shrugged.

“Yeah, you do…” They kissed each other as they had before; soft and aimlessly. Taking in the feeling of each other’s lips and each other’s bodies as one woman’s limbs wrapped around the other. It was Pearl who broke the kiss this time, rolling atop Amethyst who was pleasantly beguiled at looking up at her.

“I want to make you orgasm.” Amethyst snorted and Pearl frowned. “What?”

“So proper, ‘ _I want to make you orgasm_ ’, just say cum, dude, or squirt. It’s faster.”

“Whatever you call it,” Pearl said, a bit agitated that her earnest request was mocked but that was just how Amethyst was. “I want to make you feel good too.”

“Sheesh, talkin’ about clichés. I thought people only said crap like that in those smutty romance novels.”

“Oh, come on!” Pearl sat up, trying to avoid the fact that a smutty romance novel was exactly where she had heard that line (she frequented a lot of coffee shops as a teen). “Can’t you be serious for one second?”

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry,” Amethyst said, not wishing to get into another argument. “I think I may actually have a lil somethin-somethin for that.” Pearl cocked an inquisitive and cautious eyebrow at her.

“What kind of something?” Amethyst told her to let her up and Pearl watched as the smaller woman went back to the closet, kicking the boom box away which ruled out another dance (sadly). She dug through one of Pearl’s drawers, tossing aside various bits of underwear on the floor much to Pearl’s chagrin.

“Oooh!” Amethyst stopped and pulled a red lace pair with a see-through floral pattern. “You mind if I borrow this sometime P?”

“Amethyst, we’re far from the same underwear size.” Pearl said, her hips practically non-existent compared to Amethyst’s.

“I didn’t say they were for _me_.” Pearl gave her the same look her old history teacher had given her once when she gave a literal answer for how long the Seven Year War lasted.

“Killjoy.” She tossed the pair over her shoulder and dug deeper into the drawer.

“I hope you intend to pick all those up after we’re dooooooooooh my goodness…”

Amethyst had finally found what she had torn through Pearl’s drawer for; a lavender colored, excessively lifelike, and very wobbly double-sided dildo. The smaller woman held the middle as both ends swung in two separate directions, leaving the taller woman’s mouth agape with shock.

“If you wanna,” Amethyst asked, “could finally put this bad boy to use.” She tossed it into the air and caught it. Pearl had to look away when the ends started to swing every which way as a result.

“Wha-where did you get that?” Pearl asked a valid question, considering there wasn’t an… adult store that carried such an item for miles.

“Online, baby! They got all kinds of kinky shit there. They even had a whip!” A _WHIP,_ Pearl thought, but addressed a more important question on the matter.

“How did you order it online; we don’t have a computer.” And probably all the better for it, Pearl quickly decided.

“Public library, yo.”

“Oh, GOD!” Pearl wrinkled her nose in repulsion.

“Nah, relax, I’m just shitting you, I ordered it from V’s house.”

“Vidalia?” Amethyst nodded, almost too happily. “Why on Earth…”

“Well, couple weeks back I found one like this under her bed and-”

“I don’t want to know!” Pearl said as fast as she could. Amethyst started to swing the dildo like a slingshot.

“All the same, we never got a chance to test it out. Sour Cream’s a real clam snatcher.”

“What?” Pearl regretted asking that almost immediately.

“A clam snatcher. Y’know? It’s like a cock blocker but for ladies.”

“Charming.” Pearl said, still unable to bring her eyes to the massive phallic device her roommate had begun to swing around like a nun chuck.

“Yeah, I can’t take credit for it, a friend of mine from high school thought of it. I did come up with clit-gypped but that’s a little insensi-”

“If you’re trying to talk me into using that thing, you’re doing a very poor job right now.” Pearl interrupted her.

“Oh, and here I thought this was about pleasuring me.” She pointed at herself with one end of the dildo.

“Yes, and I’ll be more than happy to, just not with… that.”

“Aw, come on P, it’s been so eager to meet you. Isn’t that right Richard?” Amethyst jumped back on the bed and held one end of the dildo so that it was in Pearl’s face.

“That’s right Pearl,” she spoke in a squeaky voice as she shook it, “Amethyst told me aaaaaaall about you. I’m totes mad in love with you, girl. Please shove me all up in your cooter.”

“Amethyst, really!” She pushed Richard away.

“Ow, Pearl, that hurt my feelings… make me hurt some more.”

“Amethyst!” She fought against the smaller woman as Amethyst tried to bring Richard even closer to her.

“Give lil Richard a kiss!”

“Cut it out!” She tried unsuccessfully to keep herself stone faced.

“Or you can let lil Richard kiss a-you…” Her voice deepened at the end of the proposition, Pearl losing the battle of dominance as Amethyst toppled her back on the bed.

“You are not funny, you know that?” She said through tears of laughter.

“Why do you think I flunked out of clown school?” Amethyst said in her normal voice. The two regained their composure as they gazed at each other’s eyes. Amethyst’s was a rare indigo shade that Pearl could swear were colored contacts if the shorter woman hadn’t said otherwise. Pearl’s were a sky blue color, hypnotizing and complimenting her already gorgeous face. Both could get lost in the other’s eyes if left to look at them long enough, but Amethyst’s thoughts returned to the question at hand (literally).

“So it’s a veto for lil Richard?”

“Afraid so.”  Pearl answered, not in the slightest bit apologetic.

“Eh, your loss. See ya Rickie.” She tossed the dildo onto the floor, landing with a heavy thud that scared the both of them. “I might wanna compare it to V’s at some point.” Amethyst thought aloud.

“Yes… you do that.” Amethyst turned back to her roommate. The two of them were back to square one, with Amethyst laying on top of expectant Pearl who seemed like she had her own ideas about pleasuring her.

“You look like you got something else cooking in that noggin.” She knocked on Pearl’s forehead.

“I do.” Pearl seemed pleased with herself at whatever her plan was.

“Lay it on me.”

“Well,” she began, “I was thinking maybe it could be fun to just… do it the old fashioned way?” Amethyst tilted her head.

“What you mean like…” She made two V shapes with her fingers and combined them.

“Something like that, yeah.” Pearl said plainly. Her small smile not quite as confident as Amethyst’s had been when she first introduced her to Richard.

“You are an old school lesbian; you know that P?”

“The school’s lasted this long for a reason.” Pearl smirked.

“Amen to that.” She leaned down and kissed Pearl, making out with her a little more before the taller woman rolled on top of her again.

“This time it’s about you.” She said, practically shoving her tongue into Amethyst’s mouth before biting her lower lip.

“Ah!” Amethyst jumped at the bite and then laughed into Pearl’s mouth. “So it’s… all right when you get rough, huh?”

“I just know what you like.” Too right she did, Amethyst thought. And the taller woman proved how well she knew her roommate by doing all the things that pressed her buttons in exactly the right way. She pinched underneath her left butt cheek, bit at both her nipples and sucked them afterward much as Amethyst had done to her, and kissed and dug her nails across the various tattoos on her body; The pinup devil on her back, the naked angel on her chest, the heart on her forearm. She couldn’t explain why other people kissing or clawing at her tattoos was such a turn on for her, but Pearl needed no explanation as their bodies began to thrust against each other with each tattoo she serviced.

“Fucking Christ, P…” Amethyst said, grabbing her roommate’s ass in one hand and running the other through her silver hair. She arched her back when Pearl’s fingers made their way to her pussy, the taller woman taking the opportunity to suck on her breasts as they protruded from her body. Whereas Amethyst had taken her time warming Pearl up, the taller woman knew her roommate preferred to go right to the heavy petting, and Pearl obliged by thrusting two fingers against her clitoris in a rapid and successive movement.

“Shihihihit.” Amethyst chuckled, thrusting her pelvis upward into Pearl’s navel, the taller woman enjoying the touch of her lower body rubbing against her.

“Enjoying yourself?” Pearl asked, removing her fingers from Amethyst’s clit and running them along her chest.

“Fuck yeah.” Amethyst breathed, her entire body stimulated by Pearl’s soft touch. The taller woman leaned into Amethyst’s ear, kissing the top and licking the back until she whispered into it.

“Let’s turn it up a notch.”

At this she sat up, pulling Amethyst up into an embrace. They kissed again, Pearl admittedly using any excuse to do so at this point. It had been so long since she’d had this kind of contact with Amethyst or Garnet. A few years ago they could hardly go a week without at least flirting with one another and ever since Rose’s pregnancy… she was worried that they had drifted apart.

Garnet was busy at her job and if she wasn’t there then it was finishing her degree. Pearl had her work at town hall which she detested, and if she were to do anything else than that she might go back to college for a teaching degree, putting a further dent in what little free time she had. Amethyst was always there, ready with a grin and a joke, to lighten up their days should she or Garnet need it. Pearl would like her to get a job at some point, if nothing else for her own financial security should something happen to her or to the rest of them, but there was a part of her that appreciated Amethyst’s lackadaisical lifestyle. She almost wished she could join her in it.

For this moment, where their lips touched and their tongues combined, their hands explored the curves and form of their bodies, Pearl didn’t have to care about anything else in the world. It was just the two of them, for the first time in ages, and she didn’t know she missed it so Goddamn much.

“Still with me, P?” Amethyst asked when Pearl had become too lost in thought. She quickly rebounded.

“Just waiting for the right moment.” She pushed Amethyst down and lay atop her body again, this time intertwining their legs so that her knee was against the smaller woman’s vagina. Pearl could feel Amethyst driving her thigh against her own as she started dry humping the younger woman. When Amethyst could tell it wasn’t enough she positioned Pearl higher so that she could reach the taller woman’s clit easier with her fingers. Their lips met again as they rode each other, moaning into one another and steadily going faster as their climaxes built.

“Holy fuck, Pearl!” Amethyst screamed into her shoulder. “Keep going, keep going, don’t you dare fucking stop!” Pearl forgot what a violent curser Amethyst was when she really got into it but she couldn’t judge. It was taking all her willpower not to scream every explicit word she knew in every language she could speak.

“Amethyst... are you close?” Pearl panted as they picked up the speed still further.

“Gettin’ there!” She rubbed Pearl’s clit as fast as she could without hurting her, a few curses breaking away from the taller woman’s lips uncontrollably.

They kissed along each other’s bodies as Pearl humped harder and Amethyst pumped faster, sweat pouring off each of them as they made love for what felt like an eternity.

“Pearl!” Amethyst yelped as the taller woman gave her a passionate kiss, meeting her orgasm roughly around the same time as Amethyst did. The two thrust themselves against each other in an embrace for some time still, riding out their orgasms to the very last moment of euphoria.

Finally, Pearl rolled off of her partner and on her back in the bed, staring at the ceiling as a sudden fatigue came over both of them.

“Hail Mary.” Amethyst said, cuddling up to Pearl who held the smaller woman in her arm. “Jesus, you were fucking brilliant P.”

“Likewise.” Pearl returned the compliment, only able to form so many words at the moment. She glanced over at the clock on her bureau and was surprised to see it was nearly a quarter to five. Had they really been at it for that long?

“I think we should try to convince Garnet to join in,” Amethyst said, “just imagine the kind of shit all three of us could do together.”

“Like old times?” Pearl’s smile was returned by her roommate.

“Yeah,” she rested her head next to Pearl’s breast. “Like old times.”

They lay together in silence, basking in the afterglow and in each other’s company. Amethyst could hear Pearl’s heart slowly return to normal speed and Pearl enjoyed the sound of Amethyst’s heavy breath becoming calmer. The taller woman might pet her roommate’s unruly hair every so often, and Amethyst might kiss Pearl’s breast in return, but the both of them were too worn out to take it any further for the time being. When Pearl felt she could say more than three syllables at once she still kept what she had been meaning to say since the two started short and to the point.

“I love you.”

Amethyst’s eyes burst open, looking up at Pearl who was drifting to sleep. Her heart had skipped a beat and she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. What had she meant by that? Was it just a post-coitus sweet-nothing? Did she mean as a friend? As a lover? She didn’t know what she was getting so worked up about; Rose and Garnet had said they loved her as well, plenty of times, and she them. It wasn’t as though this was the first time Pearl had said that to her either, so why was she so hung up on it now?

Maybe she just hadn’t heard it for too long, Pearl saying it now felt foreign to her. Maybe it was her knee-jerk reaction to anyone telling her they loved her or that she was loved by others. It never felt genuine to her. She was sure they were lying to her, no matter who said it, no matter how unlikely it was that they were lying. She’d never known a family that loved her unconditionally, why should this one be any different?

There was also a part of her that she couldn’t deny wanted to see something more from those three simple words Pearl had just told her. How even for her claiming to herself the whole time she was getting things ready that it was just sex and it didn’t mean anything, she still wanted to look her best, perform her best for Pearl. That frumpy, prissy, bossy, beautiful, perfect woman who slept just down the hall from her. Whom Amethyst wished she could share a bed with every night, no matter how selfish it made her. No matter how ugly she was in comparison to her, no matter how nothing she was compared to…

She stopped herself. She was overthinking this, as she usually did. Her anxiety was running away with her and making problems and situations that did not exist (in Garnet’s words). Pearl just said she loved her, and that was all there was to it. Amethyst leaned back into her roommate’s bosom and sighed with content. She may never get the relationship she truly wanted with her, but this. What they had shared this afternoon, what they shared every day since they had really gotten to know each other, not many people could claim they had even with their closest friends or lovers. Why ruin it with anything complex that didn’t have to be there?

“Love you too, P.” She said. Unsure if the taller woman had heard her, but it was more for her own sake anyway.

 

A sharp cry from down the hall brought them both out of the beginnings of a well-deserved nap, Amethyst groaning when she looked at the clock and saw not even ten minutes had passed.

“Mmm-Steven’s…” Pearl stretched herself out slowly as she mumbled. “I’ll go-”

“No, P,” Amethyst stopped her as she sat up. “You take a breather; I’ll go see what’s bugging him.”

“You don’t have to…” Her voice trailed off. Pearl could barely open her eyes to look at Amethyst.

“I want to.” She assured her. “You get some rest.” She bent over to kiss Pearl’s cheek and climbed out of the bed.

“Thank you…” The taller woman was quiet after that, her body stiff as a board. Amethyst quickly put on her clothes again, tempted to try on the red panties she’d found in Pearl’s drawer earlier but thought better of it. Greg would be home soon if the clock’s time was correct (and since it was Pearl’s she could safely assume that was the case) and the last thing she needed was for him to see her in the nude again.

She stepped into the hall and shut Pearl’s door behind her as quietly as she could, fast walking to Steven’s room as quick as her stubby legs could carry her. It was a testament to how thick these doors were when Amethyst opened the one to the nursery and its sole tenant’s cries burst through the entire house like a banshee.

“Shh, shh, shh, it’s okay Ste-man, calm down.” Amethyst tried to soothe the baby as soon as she could so as not to disturb Pearl. She bounced him in her arms and played the lion mobile over his crib, singing along with it the way the others always did. Her voice, if she was being honest with herself, was not as soothing as Pearl’s or Garnet’s, but Steven responded predictably to the combination. His cries becoming softer until they stopped entirely, the smiling, rosy little boy returning to her in almost not time at all.

Amethyst took a seat in the nearby rocking chair, still humming the melody for Steven as the mobile played itself out, thinking about the day she’d had and what Pearl had said earlier in the kitchen. Even if it had come from a place of anger it didn’t change the fact that she was right. Amethyst hadn’t been pulling her weight the way she should have been, especially now that a baby was with them, and as long as she continued on as she did she’d be dead weight to the rest of the house. At least Steven had the excuse of not being able to fend for himself, what was stopping her?

“What do you think, Steven?” She asked him in a whisper. “How does retail sound to you?”

Steven made a noise in his throat that sounded like a baby barf.

“Yeah, I know.” Amethyst said, wiping his mouth a little with her sleeve. “But we all gotta start somewhere, I guess.”


End file.
